Reflections on Living in a Group Home 35 Years Later
By Terri Rimmer I t was 35 years ago this month, two months before my sixteenth birthday my mom placed me in a juvenile delinquent home for girls which was housed in a private home in a regular neighborhood. There were five other girls besides me, all with histories of behavior problems or their parents simply didn't want them. The house at 2877 Chapel Hill Road in Douglasville, Georgia was made of cedar wood and giant Brown Recluse spiders used to hang out in the rafters outside which I found out later much to my horror. One crazy roommate I had thought it'd be cute once to put one of these creatures on my bed. The Cobb Douglas Girls Group Home, which has since been torn down to make way for a four-lane road, which I recently found out much to my pleasure, was once located on a two-lane road in a nice subdivision. Now there are no houses there and 20 years ago a mall was built nearby. The first time I met the residents and staff before moving in, my mom and I were